Old And New ($5,000 in prizes, $1,500 first prize) - Fall Animation Competition 2016

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Old And New ($5,000 in prizes, $1,500 first prize) - Fall Animation Competition 2016

Details

It's Autumn in the superior hemisphere, which in some cultures is considered a season of change. Okay I might have made that up, but it's just the kind of useful whimsy to inspire you about the theme for our final competition of the year! Old And New is an open prompt for you to develop a story for your animation around. There are no restrictions other than the use of something old and something new as major aspects of your story (and also the huge list of restrictions below that you should read). How you choose to represent them is the challenge we are presenting you. This competition will let you harness your own creativity and give you a good chance to practice the basics of developing a good story for your animation.

We are giving you the seeds but what they grow in to is up to you. Judges will look at how you've transformed the theme into your own original story - and a good story begins with an idea. You could make a sick action flick about a kung fu master facing off against his student or a sentimental art piece about the bond between parent and child. A pretentious expose about how much better 90s cartoons were or update a classic film with walkie talkies to reflect modern progressive values. These are all horrible ideas but you get the point. Don't worry if your idea isn't original, the originality comes from how you execute the story. Are you up for the challenge?

Don't forget we would like all entrants to make a thread in the Works In Progress forum and keep it updated with your progress as you animate your submission. Doing this is not a requirement but we will be granting bonus points to those that keep their thread up to date, so make sure you make your thread to collect those points! Here are some past examples of the kind of thread we want you to make:

Story - Animation contains proper elements of a story such as setting, characters, plot, exposition, conflict, climax, and resolution

Animation - Demonstration of technical animation skill. Things such as timing, rhythm, arcs, squash, stretch, etc. will all be taken into account.

Art - Artistic ability. Includes aspects such as scene composition, use of color, perspective, lighting, attention to detail, etc.

Direction - Your ability to direct an animation, taking in to account things like intent, story telling, emotion, use of music, use of sound effects, etc.

Originality - We're looking for entrants to try new things! The more you set yourself apart the better.

Extra

Posted Old and New Selections in Competition Thread

Created WIP Thread

Kept WIP Thread Updated

The animation itself accounts for the majority of total possible points, but final ranking is not determined solely by how good your animation is. The above criteria will be scored out of 30, with 3 extra points for following the Extra section.

Lateness Penalty

These competitions are designed to last a total of 2 and a half months, but we understand that life can get in the way. If you're in need of more time, you can ask for an extension but be warned, there will now be a 0.35 point lateness penalty off the final score for every day past the original deadline you take, and we can only give up to an extra week before we need to move on to the next competition, so use this option wisely. Time management is a good discipline to have; this is to remain fair to those who put in the effort to finish on time.

Timeline

01
OCT

Competition Begins
The competition officially commences, entries can be submitted any time after this.

17
DEC

Final Due Date
All entries must be submitted by this date! Entries are no longer accepted after this day.

24
DEC

Winners Announcement
Judges will spend the week reviewing and scoring entries. The final results will be posted this day.

How To Enter

To enter the competition all you need to do is reply to this thread with your Old and New selections. Every few days we will collect the names of people who've posted and add it to a list of participants which everyone will use to keep track of who's entered and their progress. You may still submit an entry even if you don't make a WIP thread or announce your choices here, but you will be at an automatic disadvantage to those who do! When you have finished your entry, ensure you've met all the requirements listed below and send me a private message with your PayPal email address and a link to the SWF or video download of your entry. We will collect submissions and announce the winners according to the timeline above. We will be releasing the submitted animations on a weekly schedule after the competitions ends, so remember not to leak your entry anywhere until two days after it goes up on official StickPage channels! If you do not supply a PayPal email address you will not be able to receive your prize if you win.

Requirements

These must be followed in order for your submission to qualify. Failure to meet these requirements will automatically disqualify your entry.

Must mainly focus on stick figures

Must be a complete finished animation, cannot be split into multiple parts

Must have sound effects & music

Must contain a minimum of 90 seconds of animation excluding any introductions or credits

Introduction - A brief animated introduction to be placed at the very beginning of your animation, after any preloaders and before any other introductions

Main Menu Link - If your animation is a SWF and has a menu, a link to StickPage must be present somewhere in it

Watermark - A StickPage watermark must be present in the lower left-hand corner of the animation throughout playback, must be a link to StickPage if it's a SWF

Credits - StickPage must also appear during the credits, must be a link if it's a SWF

All released versions of the animation must contain the StickPage branding described above

Must not be released until a two days after it goes up on official StickPage channels

Must have a PayPal account to receive prize

Cursing - StickPage is frequented by a diverse range of people of various ages and cultures, and as such we tend to air on the side of caution when it comes to a controversial subject like whether or not swear words are appropriate. We would rather you avoid swearing completely within an animation.

Extreme Gore - In the past some talented animators have gone a little overboard with their graphic depiction of violence and gore in their animation, and it left some viewers feeling uncomfortable. To avoid upsetting our viewers we may ask you to tone down some gore if it's too much. This is only in very specific circumstances where the depiction is realistic enough to affect viewers. Your average stick figure cartoon violence is still perfectly fine!

Prizes

For this competition we're once again offering up a $5,000 prize pool across 15 placements! Check out our prize breakdown below:

Not sure on something? Feel free to post questions in this thread! Common answers or good questions will be added below.

What is aspect ratio?

Aspect ratio is the ratio between your video's width and height. Usually represented as X:Y, where X relates to the width and Y relates to the height. For this competition we are requiring a 16:9 aspect ratio, which means no matter how large your video resolution is, for every 16 units of your with you need 9 units in height. If you are not sure your animation is the correct aspect ratio, you can quickly use an aspect ratio calculator at this link by putting in your own animations width and height. 16:9 is a common aspect ratio for video and displays. Standard resolutions for the 16:9 aspect ratio include 640x360, 960x540, 1280x720, & 1920x1080. Typically if you are making an animation it is recommended you animate at either 1280x720 or 1920x1080 if you can for the highest fidelity results, but that is not a requirement. With vector animation software such as Flash you can animate at a lower resolution and scale up with virtually no quality loss, but lines will look thicker and imperfections in detail become more noticeable.

What is letterbox?

In video, a letterbox refers to the matte (black bars) that surround footage that was shot in an aspect ratio different from the video's. The black bars fill in the space from the edge of the video container to the edge where the footage begins. You will most likely recognize this as the black bars you see on the top and bottom of some movies. This happens because some movies are filmed with a 16:10 aspect ratio while most standard widescreen televisions have a 16:9 aspect ratio, so to fit the film in the television the letterbox needs to be added digitally. For this competition we do not want any letterbox, your animation should take up the entire width & height of the canvas.

Can we make a to be continued story?, but a complete finished animation

Nope. A fully complete animation. No "to be continued" allowed. I know this for sure because it also had this rule in the past couple competitions already. I believe this is so that animators can't use the "to be continued" as basically an excuse for an unfinished animation, which many tend to do (I've done it a couple times myself). and since the animator is likely only making the animation because it's for a competition, there's a good chance they won't ever make the second part to it, because there'd be nothing more to gain off it. Nobody wants to see an animation then get a whole big cliffhanger that they'll never see the end to. It's annoying.

Originally Posted by Externus

I'm here to make money and use lens flares. And I'm all out of lens flares.